“DIANA!!!”
Gaz screamed as loudly as he could, but voice alone would not bring what has vanished.
It all happened so fast. Too fast.
Just as they were getting ready to defend from what they thought was a massive attack, a stray bullet suddenly changed course and struck Diana in the stomach, knocking her down. And then, with speed you wouldn’t expect from a man like that, the cloaked man rushed in, grabbed Diana by the side, and threw her off the cliff, and into that ‘prison’ where he keeps his maidens.
As a human and a former human, Ilgua and Gaz were angered, very, very, angered. They didn’t know her for a while, but a comrade that genuine in this world was a rare find. It’d strike anyone’s heart strings to see someone like that die.
Crystal and Rei felt like that too, to some extent. They were just…much quieter about it.
But, something was bugging Crystal.
Setting aside the fact that her best friend was pretty much killed before her eyes, all of that happened way too fast. From the moment that battle begun, the speed that he went at far surpassed any she’s known.
‘Unless…’
……………
Just 15 seconds ago,
“HaaaaAAAAA!!! [Dragon’s Howl]!!”
Gaz was first to strike, rushing in and punching his fist straight towards him, sending a powerful shockwave at the cloaked man, truly worthy of the name [Dragon’s Howl]. But then, the shockwaves suddenly ‘curved?’ and missed.
That was the beginning of her suspicion.
Ilgua made use of the wait time and charged in with his sword, already glowing from mana. He raised it and slashed it down upon him, but he simply vanished and reappeared several steps behind where he originally was.
Casting his eyes over Diana, he grinned happily and sent out a volley of mana bullets towards them, some missing wildly, other heading straight for them. They were powerful, but everyone managed to dodge them easily.
Then, the man suddenly raised his hand, took a step back, and black, gooey magic began to gather around the hand. An ominous magic circle floated over his palm, and he pointed it straight at Diana and co.
…Or so they thought.
Because at that moment, a bullet curved and suddenly struck the off-guard Diana in her abdomen, and sent her flying down. In her pain and agony, the cloaked man suddenly vanished and appeared before Diana.
He grabbed her by the side and appeared back atop the altar, and at that moment, everyone knew what he was planning with her.
He already killed 99, he needed 100 to save the kingdom, and now he has Diana in his hands.
‘This wasn’t good-!’ Crystal thought as she tried to move, but as she tried to rush in, her body felt heavy, as if she was fighting against a current to run towards them. Surely everyone there felt the same weight, but only Rei with her supreme physical abilities could move, but even she was too late, and Diana was dropped into oblivion before Rei’s claws could sink into him.
Her moans of pain soon vanished into nothingness.
By that point, a magician like her would’ve figured something was up, and knowing Rei, she probably figured out the same thing, even if she wasn’t speaking up. Crystal…just knew, somehow.
Maybe her social link with Rei has improved! Who knows?
Jokes aside, they lost. Hell, this wasn’t even a fight. They were lured in by the trap, and they got caught in it for good.
“[Eldritch Magic]…huh.” She whispered to nobody in particular.
“DAAAMNNN YOOOOUUU!!!!!”
But, well, Gaz sure was angry. She’s questioning whether he’s angry because he’s a friend, or because he killed a girl in general…Probably both.
Still, everyone has the right to be angry here. Their precious friend just got upped and sent to the afterlife as a sacrifice.
Although, zoning herself out from the battle for a minute, what was this feeling of hers…?
Sure, she’s angry, and sure, if this guy was able to use [Eldritch Magic] to slow down time or their perception of time, then they’re as good as screwed, but…it feels like there’s still something out there, something much more powerful.
And it’s getting closer.
She’d be lying if she wasn’t scared, in fact, she’s completely out of her game right now. Why?
Because that threat boys and girls, is right above their heads.
“Why such anger? You friend was used to save the lives of thousands. There isn’t any more-“
“Of course they’re angry.”
“!?”
It was a soft voice. One that anyone would probably miss if they weren’t keeping attention. But the pure annoyance and hatred brewing inside that soft voice…there was no way in hell anyone was going to miss that.
In that moment, everyone looked up, and there they saw a man. A man wearing a clothing full of black, complimenting with his black hair. The slight emo hairstyle was…new, but that didn’t distract from the overall mysterious vibe this man gave.
And more than that, he was floating in the air, with no magic or mana expended. None.
“Y-Y-You’re-, you’re-!?”
The cloaked man looked up at him and trembled. He trembled so much his knees gave out from the trembling and he fell down, his cloak falling down, revealing the squeaky clean bald head of the man.
“You just sacrificed their friend, and those women without any consent, and for what? To save a bunch of sinful lives they don’t know? What could be more selfish?”
“H-Ha! I-I-I’ve sacrificed 100 pure maidens n-now! Y-Your curse is-!”
The instant he said curse, a [Phantom Blade] came hauling over towards him, and pierced right through his cloaked chest.
‘A-A [Phantom Blade]!?’
It threw everyone in shock, with some shocked for other reasons. Crystal especially. She knew that her [Phantom Magic] wasn’t exclusive to herself, but still…
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“Curse? You think stopping that is enough to stop me? You’ve got some guts, I’ll give you that.”
He said so in a mocking tone, but there was no laughter or mockery in those eyes. Only contempt.
That man, whoever and whatever he is, understands the pain of losing someone dear, and he could clearly sympathize and empathize with their loss. She felt no danger from him, but the aura and strength he exudes…it was almost suffocating.
With a long and probably intentionally extended sigh, he slowly raised his hand into the air and closed his eyes,
“…[Macrophage]”
Before those eyes opened with a gleam shining inside, and his hand brought down pointing towards the kingdom that rests below. A small surge of darkness cascaded out from his hand, into the air, and into the kingdom, before-
“N-No! N-Not my kingdom!!”
A black gooey slime began to rise from the ground and swallow everything it consumes. Stone, dirt, trees, grass, people, soldiers, merchants, aristocrats, princes, kings, everything it touched, they all got sucked in and was consumed.
In mere seconds, nothing of the kingdom was left, eaten like a true macrophage.
“You…YOOOUUU!!!!”
The cloaked bald man vanished from the spot and appeared in the air, firing a volley of mana bullets towards him, his anger fully showing through his expression and rough voice. His kingdom did just get swallowed to oblivion, so its justifiable.
Not that sacrificing 100 pure maidens was justifiable, but I digress.
The man floating above was more than eager to end the bald man’s life. Any man who wishes to save sinful men like the ones from that kingdom can go to hell. The problem is-
*BOOOOOOOOMMM!!!!!*
Just as he was about to erect a barrier to block off the incoming bullets, a ‘stray’ meteor came crashing into him and brought him down to the ground, along with a loud explosion and a powerful shockwave of flames and dust.
That Oldruin clone was instantly demolished.
“……Huh?”
Witnessing that, there was no way in hell the bald man could stay composed. Nah, more like no one in the area could stay composed just suddenly seeing that. Gaz, who knew what that was, was shocked to know that something like that could even happened, while the rest could only see that as an act of the gods.
Well, ‘God’ is close enough I guess.
“Bugwah!?” A sudden pressure was applied to him, forcing him to kiss the ground. Sounds of his bones and limbs cracking echoed out through the night, along with the sounds of the cliff edge cracking.
Before the cliff finally gave way and fell apart, falling down with the bald man struggling on top.
Easy to say he’s dead by that point.
And with that, the battle ends, with no victors to take stage.
The kingdom’s dead, the bald man’s dead, Diana’s gone, the Oldruin clone got struck by a meteor and died, and there’s no way they’re going to bring those 99 women back to life. Overall, a no one wins situation.
…Welp, the fourth party’s the winner then.
“Master!”
A rift suddenly ripped open in the air, and Leo(back in his male form), came out and descended down towards the surviving group. As always, he had a tired expression and was yawning, just that his fatigue was genuine this time.
“Huah~…What’s with this tense air…?”
“M-Master! The girl you asked me to protect, she-!”
“I know…don’t worry…she’s fine……I think…”
As you might have guessed from last chapter, Diana’s not dead…not yet at least. The spell that the bald man used was [Eldritch Magic], and its purpose was to break the curse Oldruin placed by tailing away 100 pure souls into the underworld.
Easy to say, he would’ve failed anyways, because: One, Diana has the title [Soul Conqueror], so anything that revolves around her soul being played with isn’t going to work, and two…she’s Diana.
The problem lies in the fact that getting her BACK wasn’t going to be an easy task. For someone like Leo, getting someone who just died recently back to life wasn’t that hard of a deal, but the place Diana’s body and soul has gone to is…complicated.
If what Leo’s thinking was right, then getting Diana back should be the main priority, since she’s quite a special one, but with more time spent here, other Oldruin clones are going around and destroying corrupt and sinful humans, which is bad.
This was a race against time itself.
The place her soul and body’s gone into, for some reason, was a place that physical beings, as in himself, his disciple, that black ogre guy, etc couldn’t go to. ‘A place of souls and gods’ a friend of his once called it.
But…As luck would have it, there happens to be one incorporeal being among her group of friends.
If Crystal, a weapon spirit, was to go through, there should be no problems on her end.
“Hey you…”
“…Me?”
“Yeah…Here…go through this…find your friend……oh, and take this to go out.”
And to get out, he handed over a neat little artefact he happened to enchant with his magic, a small silver coin to a slightly angry and confused Crystal. She stared at it for a moment before she took it.
With that done, and her precautions ready, he opened up a rift to whatever place Diana was in and left in a haste, leaving behind only a note with Ilgua reading: “I’m saving the world, go rest.” In a near unreadable handwriting.
If Ilgua’s master was here, then all the problems should be over with. After all, Leo was his master!
……Just…There’s one problem.
“…Oh sh*t.”
The world on the other side was a maze-like rainbow road-style place, just with the rainbow road switched out with ancient runic flooring, and the fact that there was multiple floors to it, and the fact that Crystal was a huge Zoro.
A perfect recipe to make someone lost!
…………………
Well, not like Diana’s in a better place though!
“HaaahaaAA!! W-What the hell is t-that!?”
She was currently on the run away from a monster that she could only describe as ‘a monster suitable for the abyss, and probably is a brother to the Shambler from DD’. Just, a gross crawly monster with 8 red eyes. Yuck.
Unlike a mollusc though, it’s fast, agile, has incredible reflex, its instinct are top-notch, and its tentacles easily slice though the stone brick walls that surround her.
Oh, and talking about stone brick walls, Diana was in a similar place to Crystal, a place of twisty turns, surrounded by stone brick walls, and with multiple levels to boot. An Asian-levelled Rainbow road with less colours in a sense.
Back on track. She’s tried everything to get it off her track. Shooting her bubbles, a volley of [Slime Cannons] and [Slime Railguns], a wave of corrosive slime, but it was just too fast or smart!
Booting back a bit, at around the time Crystal forced her way in to this world of ‘gods’, Diana was just having a casual game of Borderlands, the original one. She was just up against the vault, when suddenly, the computer she was playing shut down, and along with it, the world turned black.
Then, when she came to, she was lying down on the cold stone brick flooring, and a loud noise could be heard from behind her, which she soon realised to be the gross tentacle-wielding monster. She shrieked and ran as fast as she could in the other direction.
And then realised this was a maze and cursed to herself, before she ran again.
Then, all of that comes back to the present day, with Diana avoiding a volley of abyssal bullets being fired at her at high velocity. The tentacle attack were fine, since physical damage means nothing to her, but those abyss bullets man…one hit, and she’s outa the game.
She’s already ‘dead’! She didn’t need to die again!
Eventually, she came up with the bright idea of creating a clone of herself, and then(hopefully) making this gross monster follow the wrong one. Let’s just hope for all its smarts, it still has the smarts of an AI.
…or…not.
Because as soon as she threw away her clothes and formed a clone of herself, a volley of abyssal bullets came to town on both of them. Being the conscious one, Diana was able to dodge in time, but the clone…well, it’s seen better days.
With that, she’s back to how it’s been for the last 5 minutes, just with 30% less mana in the battery. Kinda sad really.
Now, with further conviction to strike Diana down and feed on her soul, the gross crawly monster continuous its rampage through the maze, chasing this running girl down until she finally drops down from fatigue.
Judging from the way she’s been going, she’ll soon be out in about…5 minutes or so. The monster ‘laughed?’ happily and sent a pair of tentacles to slice down the walls around it, to clear space and also spook the scared Diana a bit.
A cloud of dust flew from the crashed debris, before it cleared to show a scared Diana, who was having a hard time getting to her feet from all the recent scares. She slowly crawled away from it, but a volley of abyssal bullets pierced through her unclothed chest as her eyes went blank, and her body went cold.
…And also broke down into a puddle of lifeless slime.
*…!*
It was then, it realised, it had gotten JoJoed! tricked!
Although Diana was a Slime Queen now, through and through, killing her didn’t mean that she would just break down into a puddle of green slime. If so…that meant that the Diana he had just shot was…*gasp* a clone!
It ‘roared?’ in anger as it stomped around, its tentacles shooting around and slicing apart more of the stone brick walls. In its tantrum, it ‘shrieked?’ and rushed off further into the maze, angered by its failing to capture and eat such an easy prey.
And so…the place went silent once more, with only the occasional sounds of falling pebbles filling the silent air.
Then, there came life.
A small string of slime slowly escaped out from under the debris, rose up into the air, and formed into the real Diana, safe and unharmed from getting swallowed by the Shambler’s cousin. Ah~, what a nice day to be alive!
“Phew…take that, you gross monster thingy!”
She triumphantly shouted as she rose her hand into the air, before she realised she probably made a sound loud enough to call back the monster and recoiled back. In fear, she turned back into slime and hid under the debris for a while, before coming out after determining that the monster was probably, hopefully, most likely, away from here.
“…Diana? I-Is…Is that you?”
“……Huh? Crystal?”
And as lady luck has it, just as she formed back into her human form and sighed, a familiar face shows itself. And of course, the first thought that came into her mind was:
‘…Wait, did Crystal also die then!?’